Mick Jagger - Acting and Film Production

Acting and Film Production

Jagger has also had an intermittent acting career, most notably in Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's Performance (1968) and as Australian bushranger Ned Kelly (1970). He composed an improvised soundtrack for Kenneth Anger's film Invocation of My Demon Brother on the Moog synthesiser in 1969. He auditioned for the role of Dr. Frank N. Furter in the 1975 film adaptation of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a now iconic role that was eventually played by the original performer from its run on London's West End, Tim Curry. Appeared as himself in the Rutles' film All You Need Is Cash in 1978. In the late 1970s, Jagger was cast as Wilbur, a main character in Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. However, a delay and the illness of main actor Jason Robards (later replaced by Klaus Kinski) in the film's notoriously difficult production resulted in his being unable to continue due to schedule conflicts with a band tour; some of the footage of his work is shown in the documentary Burden of Dreams. He developed a reputation for playing the heavy later in his acting career in films including Freejack (1992), Bent (1997), and The Man From Elysian Fields (2002). In 1983, he starred in Faerie Tale Theatre's The Nightingale as the emperor.

In 1995, Jagger founded Jagged Films with Victoria Pearman " start my own projects instead of just going in other people's and being involved peripherally or doing music." Its first release was the World War II drama Enigma in 2001. That same year, it produced a documentary on Jagger entitled Being Mick. The programme, which first aired on television 22 November, coincided with the release of his fourth solo album, Goddess in the Doorway.

In 2008, the company began work on The Women, an adaptation of the George Cukor film of the same name. It was directed by Diane English. Reviving the 1939 film met with countless delays, but Jagger's company was credited with obtaining $24 million of much-needed financing to finally begin casting. English told Entertainment Weekly: "This was much easier in 1939, when all the ladies were under contract, and they had to take the roles they were told to."

The Rolling Stones have been the subjects of numerous documentaries, including Gimme Shelter, which was made as the band was gaining fame in the United States. Martin Scorsese worked with Jagger on Shine a Light, a documentary film featuring the Rolling Stones with footage from the A Bigger Bang Tour during two nights of performances at New York's Beacon Theatre. It screened in Berlin in February 2008. Variety's Todd McCarthy said the film "takes full advantage of heavy camera coverage and top-notch sound to create an invigorating musical trip down memory lane, as well as to provoke gentle musings on the wages of ageing and the passage of time." He predicted the film would fare better once released to video than in its limited theatrical runs.

Jagger was a producer of, and guest-starred in the first episode of the short-lived comedy The Knights of Prosperity, which aired in 2007 on ABC.